This parking lot was so attractive to some people that they came to work early just to get one of these fine parking spaces. It was quite a status symbol to go out to that center of the campus parking lot and nonchalantly get in your car. As you drove away you would wave to the less fortunate people who had to go quite a distance to get their car.

As happens to all good things, one day the UNM leaders declared this wonderful parking lot would be closed forever. We were incredulous at the announcement. A friend complained, “The very idea of them using taxpayer money to turn our valuable parking spaces into, can you believe it, a duck pond. We have to do something.”

The battle was not pretty. Signs on campus proclaimed, “We don’t need no stinking duck ponds, we need more parking lots.” Other signs said, “The taxpayers cannot afford to be building duck ponds.”

The protests, including a rude song, President Bud Davis’s Duck Pond, luckily fell on deaf ears. The protests continued until the first day the water and the ducks and the sunshine made everyone feel great.

Here is the point of my story: today the UNM Duck Pond and Commons Area is one of the defining campus symbols of UNM. Best I can tell, pretty much everyone cherishes the duck pond. In fact, if someone desires a beating all they have to do is go to UNM and propose turning the duck pond into 200 parking spaces. It might even be worse. They might be shot at sunrise on three consecutive mornings for just such a suggestion.

The duck pond has attracted many new students to UNM. When they come for the campus visit it is one of the first places they go. So whatever the university spent on constructing the duck pond is more than covered by the money the additional students bring to UNM over the year. Therefore, it is good UNM officials had foresight and thick skins.

The same syndrome applies at school bond election time. First, it is the mechanism to fund capital projects in school districts. We pass bonds for the future. Shortsighted people oppose bonds because that money does not provide personal benefit. read full column

State officials may allow digital billboards
along interstate highways and other federal routes in New Mexico.

The Santa Fe New Mexican reports
that today the state Transportation Commission
is scheduled to consider rule changes that could legalize electronic
billboards.

States oversee off-site outdoor advertising along federal highways
under agreements with federal agencies. Outdoor advertisers already use digital
signs in some places in New Mexico, including
within the city of Albuquerque.

The Albuquerque
Journal reports that the Silver City-based university plans to slash spending
by 4 percent and eliminate less popular courses.

WNMU President Joseph Shepard
says the changes are needed because a projected 5 percent increase in student
enrollment did not materialize. He says the university by the end of this month
will cut spending for the remainder of this budget year by more than $1.3
million.

Officials say cuts will probably be a combination of layoffs and
letting some vacancies remain unfilled.

About 100 gun safety advocates rallied at the
Capitol for a proposal to require criminal background checks of more people who
buy firearms at gun shows.

Santa Fe Police Chief Ray Rael spoke in favor of the
measure at Wednesday's rally. Supporters are urging Republican Gov. Susana
Martinez to add the gun proposal to the Legislature's agenda. The Legislature
is restricted to considering the budget, tax measures and proposals allowed by
the governor.

A bill failed in the Legislature last year to mandate background
checks for firearms purchased at gun shows from private sellers. Federal law requires
those checks for sales by licensed dealers in their stores and at gun shows.

Opponents contend that background checks won't stop shootings like one this
month at a Roswell
school.